As a male, you know you have no normal sperm count after your doctor's confirmation when you see him/her for the fertility assessment of both of you. Your doctor helps you treat it through medications and advice on certain lifestyle changes. Before jumping on the suggested lifestyle changes, you should know what normal sperm count is.
A normal sperm count ranges from 15 to 200 million sperm a millilitre of sperm. Anything less than 15 million a millilitre or 39 million sperm per ejaculation is low sperm count that experts term as oligospermia. Apart from sperm count, your sperm should have good motility and shape. Having a close look at your semen analysis report, you can easily understand the normal range of everything that terms your sperm good. As per the World Health Organisation, the normal ranges of your semen analysis report should look like this one:
Total sperm count in one ejaculation
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39 to 928 million
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Volume of seminal fluid per ejaculation
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1.5 to 7.6 mL
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Normal sperm count per millilitre
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15 to 259 million
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Total sperm motility (progressive and non-progressive)
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40 to 81%
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Progressive sperm motility
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32 to 75%
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Sperm morphology (shape)
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4 to 48%
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Some Do’s to Increase Sperm Count
As an intended father, you should increase your sperm count when your semen analysis report shows low sperm count. Your doctor will write a few prescription medicines and advise you to make a few changes in your lifestyle. Here are some do’s of those suggested lifestyle changes:
- Take a well-balanced and healthy diet every time. Your diet should contain whole grains, nuts, seeds, citrus fruits, most fish, bananas, dark chocolate, leafy vegetables (spinach), turmeric, etc.
- Exercise regularly. If performing high intensity workouts is not possible, walk constantly for at least 30 minutes a day or 150 minutes a week. Use stairs instead of lifts/escalators and go on foot for grocery shopping in the local market
- Keep your stress level lower through meditation and deep breathing practice
- Take enough rest and sleep soundly
- Manage your body weight. For a healthy body weight, keep your BMI between 19 and 25
Some Don’ts to Increase Sperm Count
Like what you should do, you should know what not to do to increase your sperm count. Here are some don’ts for your help:
- Don’t smoke. As per a review of around 20 studies, heavy smoking lowers sperm count in males.
- Don’t consume alcoholic beverages. If leaving your drinking habit is hard, make it down to a moderate level, 2-3 pegs a day/week.
- Don’t take illicit drugs like merijuana and cocaine
- Don’t have excess body weight
- Don’t consume soya food
Conclusion
As a male, you should have a normal sperm count when you want to father a child or make your female partner pregnant to expand your family. Lower number than normal sperm count ranges, 15 to 39 million, is not good. If detected, you should increase it. On your doctor’s advice, following the above-mentioned do’s and don’ts can help you increase your sperm count.